Avant Garde

This is the version of Avant Garde that I own and as far as I know it's the exact same fragrance as the one sold in the black, circular bottle. Avant Garde opens surprisingly fresh. It's all grapefruit, bergamot, and ambergris in the beginning, and what results is an accord that is fresh, and mainly marked by tart citrus with a salty-sweet breeziness. At times it almost crosses into aquatic territory. It doesn't present itself as an incense, tobacco, or cacao fragrance at all for the first 45 minutes--so much so that I questioned whether or not I had the received the right fragrance and that some bizarre switcheroo hadn't occurred at the bottling plant. But sure enough, right around the one hour mark or a little past, a very nice, dry, powdery and unsweetened cacao note starts to peek through the established freshness, and when it does it brings a soft, dusty, mid-spectrum incense along with it and finally a quiet but rugged, earthy tobacco. Avant Garde becomes quite a different scent at this point. Though it retains something of a fresh character (it never gets heavy, thick, or particularly dark), the breezy, salty-sweet and tart citruses settle considerably, now sharing the space with a much dustier, drier, earthier presence, and the focus shifts to an undeniable natural cacao and its supporting notes. To my delight, the ambergris holds, and blended among this dusty earthy cacao is the subtle but noticeable salty marine breezy sweetness which first appeared on a larger scale in the opening. It makes for a wonderful, interesting and innovative drydown, all the while keeping Avant Garde's freshness in tact. This development, or transformation is complete after about 2 hours, maybe 3. After that it's pretty much finished shifting shape in any form and it's just a matter of some of the base notes becoming more prominent in relation to the diminishing top notes. Avant Garde has good performance overall. Regarding its projection, it has a typical, gradually declining arc of intensity, starting the first hour with good, above average projection, reaching out about a foot and a half, and then receding from there on. By the third and fourth hour it's become reserved, perhaps half a foot off the skin, but still with a solid noticeable presence, and by hours 5 and 6 it's a skin scent, which hangs on for a couple more hours. Overall I would describe its longevity as 8 hours, consisting of the steady, gradually declining projection described above. Avant Garde is undoubtedly unisex, though it leans fairly masculine in my opinion. I've noticed other people feel the opposite however, so it's probably just safe to say that it's unisex. For me, it's the kind of fragrance that would make a nice casual choice but can also be dressed up, especially when taking into account the development of its second half. . Avant Garde seems seasonally versatile, save for maybe the absolute hottest months of the year. Perhaps what I like most about Avant Garde is that it's a fresh scent, but a really different oneThere's nothing out there that's really like this, and it smells as new and nifty to me now as it did ten years ago when i first sampled it. If there's a drawback here it's that I'd like the scent to have a little more oomph after the 3rd or 4th hour when it really becomes more reserved, but a few extra sprays help with that and I can work around it. In Conclusion, this is a creative and original winner, and one I'm happy to have in my collection. Final rating, a very solid 8.7/10. Recommended for sampling. I would recommend it as a blind buy, but it's reserved character may be too soft for some. Side note: M. Micallef as a house is a bit underrated. If you're into niche and luxe fragrances, they're absolutely worth exploring. As a whole, the scents are very craftily composed and include vibrant, impressive, modern ingredients, but the compositions tend to be a bit quieter or softer than a lot of the loud, brash stuff that's being released at the moment.